Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Betting on Cup races sets record – with an asterisk
Total betting on the 14 Breeders’ Cup races held Friday and Saturday at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., was up 0.6 percent compared to last year, when there were 13 official Breeders’ Cup races held at Del Mar in Southern California, according to charts of the races.
The total of $136.3 million in betting this year set a record and was the third year in a row that handle rose on the Breeders’ Cup races, but it came with an asterisk due to the addition of a race to the official Breeders’ Cup lineup. The new race, the Juvenile Turf Sprint, kicked off a skein of five Friday Breeders’ Cup races that were restricted to juveniles, a new wrinkle to the schedule that Breeders’ Cup implemented this year.
Still, the slight rise in Breeders’ Cup handle despite the addition of a new race seemed out of line in context with a general rise in handle over the past year, and, on average, handle on a Breeders’ Cup race this year was $9.74 million, down 6.5 percent compared with average handle last year of $10.42 million.
The Saturday Breeders’ Cup races this year were held three hours earlier than last year or in 2016, due to the host track this year being located in the Eastern time zone. Prior to Del Mar hosting the event in 2017, the Breeders’ Cup was held at Santa Anita in Arcadia, Calif.
The last time the Breeders’ Cup was held in the Eastern time zone, in 2015, when the event was at Keeneland Racecourse in Lexington, Ky., total handle on 13 Breeders’ Cup races was $125.9 million, according to charts, for an average of $9.68 million, statistically equal to the average this year (though down slightly when adjusted for inflation).
Total betting on Saturday’s 12-race card at Churchill was $105.2 million, according to Breeders’ Cup, down 7.5 percent compared with total betting on the 12-race Saturday card last year at Del Mar. Combined, the Friday and Saturday handle for 22 races total at Churchill was $157.4 million, according to Breeders’ Cup, down 5.2 percent compared with handle on 22 races over the two-day event last year.
Horse race handle has generally been trending up over the past year, in part because of changes to tax-reporting requirements enacted in the fall of last year that were highly favorable to experienced horseplayers. Those changes were cited for some of the increase in handle at the Breeders’ Cup last year, when the Del Mar figures were up 5.7 percent compared with the total handle on 13 Breeders’ Cup races at Santa Anita in 2016.
Comparisons between handle numbers for specific races and in specific pools did not generate a clear pattern other than that wagering was down most notably on the earliest races on the Saturday card, when compared with the races held at the same spots in the card last year.
Craig Fravel, chief executive of Breeders’ Cup, said Monday that the organization had not yet been able to analyze detailed market data on handle, but he noted the earlier start time as a possible factor for weakness early on the Saturday card.
“It’s not like we’re disappointed, but we did start three hours earlier, and that could have had an impact,” Fravel said. Fravel added that start times are sometimes dependent on broadcast windows available on NBC, the Breeders’ Cup’s broadcast partner.
Breeders’ Cup also added a number of wagers to its lineup this year, including three headto-head bets on each day of the event and rolling Super High 5 bets throughout both cards. The card this year also had a late pick five ending in the Classic, a bet that generated $3.25 million in wagers. That bet may have cannibalized other multi-race pools ending in the Classic, as betting on the late pick four was down 28.6 percent and wagering on the pick six was down 32.7 percent.
A total of 176 horses ran in the 14 races offered on Friday and Saturday, for an average field size of 12.6 horses per race. Last year, 158 horses ran in the 13 races, for an average field size of 12.2 horses per race.
Wagering on the Friday card at Churchill had been up 21 percent, but that included the additional race, since only four races were held on Friday last year. The average handle per Friday race was down slightly when compared to last year.
Churchill announced attendance of 70,423 for the Saturday card on a cool but sunny day, an 8.1 percent increase over the Saturday attendance the last time the event was held at the Louisville track in 2011. This year’s Saturday attendance was down slightly from the 2010 event at the track, when Zenyatta made her final appearance in that year’s Classic.